Iridescence
by pink-cherry-005
Summary: 15themes. 13. Al sees Truth's orchid eye, and it's foreboding. 14. Dark insomnia catches Ed waking in his mother's grave. / Brothers!EdAl and EdWin.
1. Argent Engravement

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>8.29.11<em>

1. Argent Engravement

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><p>Edward didn't know anyone who knew about it.<p>

Save for the impulsivesness of a certain blonde _gearhead_, one that didn't so much as pity the bitter-tasting "no's" and "don'ts" he spat at her, too sprung on popping open the lid of his pocket watch he so purposely bound with alchemy.

He exhaled from his nose, the nostalgia making his temples pound. And the click is much more aggressive.

Edward didn't know if he had been followed.

He'd trained his automail foot not to step around with such sharp bounces, instead with delicate prudence. Prudence he's adapted from situations such as sneaking out of the hospital to get some much needed fresh air, quite like tonight. With a few steady leaps he was down the stairs, out the door, and off the porch, making sounds of success that passed the sensitive ears of the black dog curled into a quiet little ball beside the old door.

All he knew was that it was well past midnight and he wouldn't risk sentencing himself to rest only to arise a potential insomniac: casual black tank soaking onto his back, heart exploding in his chest, hand and automail alike showing signs of battery from chasing (and evading) some monster few and far between...

_Click. _Metal fingers squeeze around the trinket that holds his destiny in his hands.

The fifteen-year-old presses the sides of the object and opens his palm again, transfering the cooling surface from steel to flesh. Two silver circles greet him, one with thin black hands ticking time, one that burdened a timeless carving. As his fingers overlap this carving he's greeted with yet another, one that dubs him: _Edward Elric, Youngest State Alchemist, Dog of the Military._

Never thought his sins would make his stature teeter between that of an animal or a God...

A snort passes his nose again, and he resorts to the feckless motion of opening and closing his watch. It's soothing somewhat. _Spring! Click. Spring! Click..._

He leaned against a young, skinny tree adjacent to another nostalgic site before him. Some cinders that let gravity be their grave had stuck around - he could even make out the heady scent of half-burned pages of alchemy books. The rest made their home in the wind, signing off elsewere. That same wind nearly covered the crescendo of clanks that stopped just at his side, followed by a concerned, "Brother?"

Ed lifted his eyes, straightened his posture, and pocketed his once solitary recollections.

"What are you doing here, Al?" he managed gruffly. His hand secretly quivered at his side.

The younger Elric was going to answer back with his brother's question but knew better than anyone: the only way to get a straight answer from Ed was to get into his mind, body, and soul.

The armoured boy answered, "Same as what you're doing." Whatever that was. But as he observed the setting of ashes in the moonlight, he sighed. "Our old house...I think I'm standing on our front porch."

Ed flashed a grin within Al's line of sight. Al smiled too - _so this _was _what he was thinking about._

If only Al knew. If only he knew what his own brother was keeping so preciously in his sight, in his pocket, within the tight locks of his alchemy, engraved like stone...

"Al," the older Elric began, stepping across the ashen planks and rubble, "promise me something, alright?"

"Yeah, sure," piped Al optimistically.

"Just..." The sigh he released was deep, exhaling coldly from his pounding chest. "Don't forget...that day...October 3rd, 1911."

There would come the day when Ed would actually sit down with Al, open the watch, and pour out his feelings.

Until then, he would drop the subject until Al would ask again.

"I haven't forgotten," answered Al, his eyes disappearing from the slits in his armour. "We never will."

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><p>Late night writing! (It's a little past 9:30 pm at my place!)<p>

This drabble-fic has been brought to mind by a major inspiration: _**Sincerely, Yvette and Auto-Alchemechanist**__**.**__ They both make perfectly vivid drabbles and I want to do the same._

This a brotherly drabble fic for the Elric brothers (with some moments of EdWin or AlMay in some chapters). Every title is based on a color and the subject of the chapter.

This is my LAST week of summer! T_T So updates will come fast, slow, medium, whenever, idk.

Thank you for reading!

~pink


	2. White in a Glass

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>8.30.11<em>

2. White in a Glass

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><p>At seventeen and a striking six-foot-three, Edward still credited his spurt to good-night's rests, occasional downs of waist-expanding foods, and grueling efforts to keep himself alive when he was faced with fatal attractions.<p>

And to this day, milk was still below the charts. Buried beneath, even.

Grimacing at the skinny half-gallon carton perched onto the countertop, Ed assumed Al had been up fixing himself a bowl of cereal, intent of coupling it by drowning it in that _cow piss._ Opening the fridge, he fished around for..._Aha!_ He hauled up the golden carton of orange juice delightfully, scooting away the milk carton towards the center of the countertop and replacing it with the other, finding that the milk had stolen the orange juice's rightful place as The Morning Drink.

"Hey, morning Ed," cooed Al's warm, deepening voice.

"Oh, mornin' Al," replied Ed, turning towards his brother who had returned from the restroom.

Al approached the green cupboard, selected a glass and extended his hand for the milk carton.

Edward visibly cringed as the shiny white liquid trickled slowly, slowly from the mouth of the carton and into the vessel, sloshing around the sides as ugly valleys filmed and trickled down to dissolve into the mass that stared back at him.

Al rose his glass and set his lips on a side, prepared to let that gasoline ignite inside him...

"You drink that _alone_?" muttered the perplexed seventeen-year-old.

Al paused only to set the cup down. "Yeah, why not?" he demanded, grinning.

"It's 'cuz," he began, sticking a hand into the cupboard and extracting his own glass, "You and Winry nag at me over and over about _how great that tastes with cookies _or _how good it is for my height _but ya know what?" The younger Elric watched his brother lethargically fill his glass with liquid gold as he continued, "That had _nothing _to do with the fact that I grew taller than Winry and then some."

Ed turned to place both cartons back in the fridge, Al sort of playing with both glasses as he challenged, "You know Ed, if you and a glass of milk were to have a race, I'm sure milk would win by a landslide."

"You're saying I've got as much stamina as a path of spilled milk?" Ed argued, slamming the refrigerator softly.

"Bottom line is: you might end up drinking milk without even knowing it."

"I think I would know the difference between a drink that's orange and one that's white, Al," Ed muttered, fisting the glass, tilting it, and chugging its contents in one go...

...before spewing it all out uncerimoniously.

"So orange juice is white, Brother?" snickered Alphonse.

Ed journeyed to the bathroom, prepared to wash his mouth out with soap. "Shut up."

The damn milk won.

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><p>I think I'm gonna make a pattern of writing a chapter late at night this entire week. It's pretty inspirational!<p>

Yes, Al switched the glasses on poor Ed. Thought his cup 'o juice sat on the left, as it did before...

Shoutout to **Fuehatraya** for supplying the first review - I liked it very much!

Thanks for reading, all! :D


	3. Copper Spiral Cord

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>8.31.11<em>

3. Copper Spiral Cord

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><p>These last few days have been nothing short of digging my own grave.<p>

So sue me! I got my damn side run through with iron and about twenty stitches to prove it!

I spent the first three days falling in and out of conciousness and, when I was final able to sit straight up the fourth day, that's when I _regretted _being able to raise my heavy head from the pillows.

I was throwing on a white loose-fitting jacket and combing my hand through my free-flowing hair with a sigh, eyeing the grocery list I'd prepared for myself. I was set to exit the door, disregarding the need to braid my hair.

"Mr. Elric," the doctor's wife informed me that day, "someone named Alphonse would like to speak with you."

"Really?" I gasped, completely electrified.

_Alphonse actually reached me?_

I bolted out from the door and to the phone on the wall, practically snatching it out of her hands, I was so eager.

The cord shared my giddiness by swinging excitedly against my knees.

"Al, is that you! I'm so glad..." I cried to the other line, but was overlapped by Al:

"Brother, don't _ever_ scare me like that..."

We both halted our ramblings, alleviating ourselves with reposeful breaths.

"Um, you first," I decided humbly.

"Brother, thank goodness you're okay! I heard you went missing!" Al paused a bit, as if speaking to someone briefly in the background, and continued a bit sadly, "But...I'm sure you wanna save the explanation when we reunite, huh?"

I chuckled, answering, "Actually Al, I wouldn't mind talking to you hours on end. Why so worried?"

I was able to blink about three times before Al answered candidly, "Because...I'm here with Dad."

If not for my automail limb grasping the neck of the phone even tighter, my flesh hand would have tingled with animosity, either dropping it or slamming it down with a revertebrating _cling! _

"Me and Winry stumbled across him - we're in Liore. And he...really wants to talk to you, Brother."

"Tch! About what!" I cried, clenching and unclenching my vacant hand. "Al, you'd better not put that bastard on the-!"

"How are you doing Ed?" I knew that voice wasn't Al's and stopped abruptly. "Are you injured?"

Now he chooses to act like a father - with smug sincerity!

"Why the _hell _would _you _care?" I shouted at the old man. "Put Al back on!"

"Please listen just this once, Ed," he begged. "There might be a chance we'll meet up again, and when that time comes, I want to tell you something - I've told your brother already."

"Well, if it's that damn important, just spit it out, Hoenheim!"

"Edward, I..." He seemed urgent to gush out whatever he wanted, but was content with bottling it in for the time being. So he said, "Edward, I love you and Alphonse with all of my heart. And if you truly believe that, then please listen to my story next time around."

A blast of cold rushed into my entire body, a hammer pounding at the very crown of my head. I nearly screamed, "What kind of sick son of a bitch leaves his own two sons, then up and throws around that he...!" I couldn't finish that statement he made. I couldn't _conspire _it. "The next time I see your face...I swear I'll cave it in with my right hook!"

Any utters from him were shut out as I, as predicted, slammed the receiver down with a revertebrating _cling! _

"Bastard..." I ground out.

If the animosity was so aflamed, if I resented him like I did a murderer...

...why were tears descending in rivers over my eyes?

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><p>This one was insanely emotional...but awesome all the same.<p> 


	4. Mother's Carnation Lips

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>9.1.11<em>

4. Mother's Carnation Lips

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><p>It's my birthday. I'm supposed to wake up with this feelgood attitude, spreeing through the tangerine leaves that littered or assembled on our front porch and backyard.<p>

My body shouldn't be scalding to the touch, I shouldn't be a coughing fit, tuckered out. On my tenth birthday!

It's been six birthdays since Dad left.

So it's my sixth birthday without Mom.

And I have a fever of one hundred seven degrees.

My skin's so hot that the tear that streams from each eye is emotionless.

I hear the door open and swipe my hands over both cheeks once. My brother enters, balancing a bowl of chicken soup, a tall glass of water, and a capful of medicine onto Mom's favorite breakfast-in-bed tray, chesnut-wooden and teeming with pretty painted flowers.

"Here, Al," says Brother with a smile. "This'll make ya feel better." I sit up in bed as he sits down, careful setting the tray in my lap. "Take the medicine first."

I wrinkled my nose at him. "I don't wanna..."

"Come on, open wide," he insisted. "Here comes the train!"

I scrunched shut my eyes and downed the bile stuff, quaffing my water and then swallowing mouthfuls of soup. Once I finished and the spoon clanked inside the empty bowl, I noticed Ed looking pretty wary. When I asked him what was up, he looked like he was biting his finger and was staring at my mouth.

"What?" I demanded this time.

Ed looked me in the eyes and replied, blushing very slightly, "I noticed...You have Mom's lips, that's all."

Almost taken aback, I managed to giggle. "Yeah, you look like Dad, I look like Mom. Minus the hair, of course..."

"Yeah," Ed murmured, fingers grazing his lips again. "I've got _his _lips alright."

I was a bit embarrassed to ask Ed this next thought, but I was curious. "Do you remember when Mom kissed our foreheads every night?"

Ed only nodded.

"I miss her," I whispered, more to myself than Brother. I closed my eyes to think on her more but found myself slouching back against the pillows, feeling my fever diminishing and my eyes drooping. The medicine was working fast...

The last thing I registered was Ed whispering something to me and his lips caressing my forehead.

I think it was, _"Happy birthday, little bro."_

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><p>Al's birthday in the fall feels so in character to me - it give me myself a carefree, jumpy feel. :)<p> 


	5. Basket of Violaceou

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>9.2.11<em>

5. Basket of Violaceou

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><p>A forest of abundant trees harvested plump, glistening berries in large, secret bushes. Winry, being her usual dynamic self, summoned Ed and Al to join her on her berry-picking quest with a rather large wicker basket hooked onto her elbow. Ed bickered at the girl about her alacrity to pick stupid berries after he'd been overexerted from his automail matinence. Al was in accord with Winry's wishes.<p>

Ignoring the stubborness of the aggravated Edward, Winry led them both by their metal hands to this delicious sanctuary, a forest up the hill...

Al squated next to the closest berry bush and, using a giant bowl with a lid, collected little bundles of raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries that were staked in spaghetti-thin vines and brush. He told the two to go on ahead, that the clanks of his feet might startle the wildlife that came and gone within the forest.

Winry was somewhat glad about it...Now Ed wouldn't _dare _withdraw himself from her, saying he'd stay with Al but instead head home.

The blondes together piled brightly colored berries into their basket, catching the cloying scent and the viscid secretions onto their fingers. Ed wiped the mottled essence onto his black jeans. He sat to take a break, sitting onto the mossy floor and yanking a blackberry out of a bush, popping it into his mouth. He turned behind him and saw Winry duplicating, but with an egg-sized strawberry...

The girl's rose lips close around the bowed end of the berry, lapping up its protruding nectar. One by one, she plucks off the five green feathers atop, her beryl orbs pursuing them as they purl gently onto the ground below. And finally, finally, she lifts open her dainty little mouth, stretching it to the length of the strawberry, her tongue - oh, that _yummy, glossed tongue_ - flicking it once before her teeth trapped the red thing between, her eyes lulling closed as she waited to taste...

She felt as though lightning struck her lips - she swore it was the berry but - as she tasted blackberry on Ed's lips. Just as the strawberry flavour gushed inside her mouth, she felt his tongue devouring the other half she missed. Winry silently, sensually, asked for it back, her tongue darting into his mouth to retrieve her rightfully owned treasure, the satiny ruby that grew smaller and smaller as it was shared between them.

The boy in the armour, his bowl almost overflowing with violaceou, smiled to himself - he knew what was taking the two so long in there.

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><p>Had this finished over 30 min ago, but the Web was acting shady... :x<p>

But here it is, a beauty-ful Ed/Win piece, ft. Al.

Violaceou: blue and red blended together; a purplish color. Thought some new vocab was good instead of the original concept "Black and Blue Berry Basket," because strawberries were included! :3


	6. Hazel Consultation

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>9.3.11<em>

6. Hazel Consultation

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><p>No matter how far East Alphonse went or even Edward moving West, the two just so happened to meet right in the middle. A country named Colba garnered coffee and recycled metal. Within the populated city were the natives, tourists, and tall-story buildings similar to those in Central. Alphonse was departuring from the hotel he'd stayed in for the past week, bags packed and sitting in the lobby, waiting for his chimera deputies, Zappato and Jerso, to join him. Looking out the glass door, he heard a stranger call to another:<p>

"Hey! Do you know where Colba's Hotel is?"

"You're standing right next to it!" laughed the other.

The first voice, growing rather close and, in fact, opening the lobby door, called back, "Thanks!" and bolted out the drafty November breezes. This tall young man wore a long-trained brown coat and shoulder-length blonde hair tied into a ponytail.

"B-Brother?" asked the eighteen-year-old, standing to his feet and touching the shoulder of the young man, who turned on contact.

Astounded gold eyes met gold eyes prickling with elated tears...

"Oh my God, Al!" gushed the nineteen-year-old, smiling so hard his jaw hurt, "I can't believe you're here!"

"Likewise!" Al replied, tightly hugging his brother. "What're you here for?"

"The recycled metal they have here will be great for maintaining my automail. Saves Winry the trouble of flyin' across the globe for repairs," sheepishly answered Ed.

"Have you talked with her recently?"

Ed stiffened at that question, lowering his head and blushing deeply. "I, uh...Not since I..."

"Oh..." Al smirked. "Something we need to chat over coffee, eh?"

Ed had been stirring and stirring his coffee through the departure-with-Winry story, adding the sixth pack of Sweet 'n' Low to it and - so embarrassed that it didn't occur to him - added cream to his traditionally black coffee. When he was finished, he was beet red and his espresso was a cappuccino.

Al had been cooling and sipping his scorched drink through the tale, watching Ed's face distort from bashful to overjoyed to full-bloom, chuckling genially to keep from busting out into sporadic laughter. When Ed was finished, Al had nearly abbandoned his coffee at the fact that he left the girl he _swore _his brother took a liking for with a hug.

"So you didn't kiss her?" Al pried, glancing at Ed's coffee before again sipping his own.

Ed waved his hand dissmissively. "Shut up. I told her how I felt, didn't I?" He gulped his own mug. Funny, the sugar made it quite creamy, not so bitter... "That's good enough."

Al grinned, setting his porcelain cup onto its coaster. "That's Edward, that's what."

Ed quirked an eyebrow. "What was that?"

"When you looked into her eyes and rested your hand on top of her head, that was the time to claim her lips, Ed!"

"When that time comes, Al, I'll let you know." He downed the rest of his drink, still unaware of its unlikely add-on.

"But," Al protested, "the chances of us meeting up again are just as rare as this!"

"Exactly," answered Ed. "That's why I'm gonna wait until you and I get back home together...So you can watch me...show Winry...this."

Al gasped excitedly, asking elated, broken questions:

"How'd you...? When...? Brother, that's...I'm so happy for you!"

In Ed's hand was a sepia Tiffany Box, and inside it a diamond betrothal.

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><p>I'm running sweet 'n' low on ideas, but I make them come with time.<p>

I cannot begin to explain how happy I was to see 9 reviews today. Me and _"Iri"_ felt appreciated. So **Auto **and **Fluehatraya**, mega thanks!


	7. His Heart Burned in Florid Flame

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>10.3.11<em>

His Heart Burned in Florid Flame

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><p>"A-Al..."<p>

If he could see his face, it could be camoflauged in the banks of snow.

If he had anything else to say, he'd end up choking - on tears without question.

If he hadn't stowed the watch atop that _goddamned_ wobbly bookshelf - overstuffed with the dustiest and neglected books, where no one but him evaded to - asking his brother to just move out the way _for a second_, and bump into the thing, the silver disk wouldn't have rolled before the armoured boy's feet - and when he good-naturedly reached down to pick it up, it had bloomed open before him...

And Ed wouldn't have admit to his brother that he still envisaged the memories of that day like a reopening scar each year.

It's October 3rd.

_Don't forget._

Why was it so fucking hard to hold out his palm and spit out to his own flesh and blood of armour, "This day is branded on me so thickly that I'm burning"?

To cry out, "I still have nightmares...that we let ourselves burn alive while sitting on the couch, watching the wooden coffee table get devoured by the slobbery mouth of the inferno, the photos with us and Mom becoming singed hair and ceramic skull, and we sit there, not saying a word, and cough and choke to die as the air around us succumbs to congested black clouds!"?

To scream, "Each year on that damn day, I don't feel like your older brother! I feel so small, I'm so scared, Al. I think I will die! I think back of what I put you through, and how you got in that body, and how half-ass I felt, pitying you like the bastard I am, trying to describe your pain and all I could tell myself was 'it was ten times worse than mine!' I...I think of more than just the day we burned our house down, I relive it time after fucking time again and-!"

He would bite his tongue, sigh - drag out a jagged breath that quakes his tongue dryly - and stop.

Because to say that would require some letting go. Some resitance of pride.

So the words came forth from the boy that was shrunken, broken, and shuttered inside a bottle of agony.

"Al, you wanna know why I didn't cry that day? Why I let Winry do that for me and I asked her why? I...knew we'd move on, and overcome our fears but...they come back...and even that fragile second is enough where _I will just break_."

Before Ed knows it, a pair of arms are embracing him. Often chilled due to autumn's winrty bite, and seldom an uncomfortable press of his forehead against Al's chestplate, Ed feels a billow of empressment coursing hotly through his brother, who released the most broken, child-like sonancy of cries his body would allow. He would make sure his big brother's pride would fall back enough to let his emotions slip through the million pores of his heart, like a cooling remedy for a burned wound, and _let Ed cry..._

"That's why we're brothers, Ed. We share pains like this," whispered angrily the younger Elric. "You shouldn't have made this day such a burden. You shoudn't have bottled up your pain for_ this _long...!"

"I'm sorry, Al..." the older, but smaller still, brother proclaimed. The apologies adding up to this day four years ago were plenty, so he started slowly. "I'm sorry..."

And Al, providing the tenderness eqivalent to both absent parents, sheltered Ed with his bulky body as he cradled his sobbing form.

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><p>I had to make this. It is October 3rd Year 11, which won't happen for like 1000 years. This had to be done!<p>

This has some reference to "Argent Engravement," where Ed promised himself he'd pour out his feelings about the watch, but never did he expect to express them like that. His sentences and tears spoke the volumes of the paragraphs I wrote that he wanted to say, but couldn't.

So Happy (Sad, Broken, Healing) October 3rd, Year 11, FMA remembrance of that day.

Aren'tcha glad I updated? :)


	8. Chartreuse Droplets

_Iridesence_

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><p><em>12.10.11<em>

8. Chartreuse Droplets

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><p>A pale yellow shimmer began to desiccate her dewy world. Receding raindrops sparkled as they rolled down the glass window and shyly seeped into the sill. It would be the death of Winry not to enjoy the breath of spring. Her bare toes would squish against sodden blades of grass as she'd stretch her arms on either side of her and twirl, breathing deeply the air permeated with sprouted trees and their pink petals and sweet bearings.<p>

When spring came afresh, apples were crispier, tangier. So Winry skipped about the kitchen and intentionally tipped over her basket of apples. Oddly shaped green and yellow orbs tumbled across the white countertop. The girl plucked her apron from a rack hanging beside the cupboard and tied it around her slender waist, adjusting it, making it snug in front of her breasts, patting away any flour that might've clung from a past month's kitchen adventure.

She rubbed her hands together, the flour chalking into her face. And making her sneeze! '_Silly me_,' she sniffled.

Snatching a paring knife from the drawer, she picked up a yellow apple by its stem and began to peel away its pretty skin. A lazy circle she drew into the knob as she shed its crispy mottled ribbons into the wastebasket. Once the crux of the fruit gleamed innocently in the sun, she set her knife atop a side and swiped it down; paper-thin slices settled themselves against the cutting board like fallen dominoes.

_'It would be better if someone were down here to help.' _she thought as she placed some slices into a mixing bowl.

Ed read the most complicated mumbo-jumbo that was alchemy but wouldn't lift a _finger _to read off the next step in the cookbook for her, or mind getting his hands dirty by kneeding flour and cutting out the pie crust! (One of the difficulties, she'd say so herself!)

Besides, she'd offer to clean up any dough that caked into the screws or between the artificial joints...Hold his outstretched arm by the elbow as she'd move a dry cloth up and down. She'd lean into his shoulder to ensure that magnified finish and feel his breath grazing her temple...

As she felt her neck glow bright crimson, she sliced the last of the fruit hard, carelessly enough just to miss knicking her pinki.

Onto the next apple...

This one was green, solid, not mottled like most of the yellows. Its skin could be drawn out and crushed into a pigment meant for the most lucious hilltop on days when the sun shone white. With a bit of a sad smile, she peeled its color away, rinsing and repeating.

Six apples of two different tastes would make Ed's mouth sing. She knew he liked each apple slice dusted with brown and white sugar. Winry melted butter into a bowl and used a butter brush to paint a pale-yellow sheen onto each slice. Afterwards, she pinched a bit of her hazel sugar mix onto each slice, where it stayed, a disc of powdered snow.

_'Where's that cinnamon?' _she pondered. Digging through the spice cupboard rendered fruitless. Winry huffed. She refused to leave her art unattended, but cinnamon was the most flavorful ingredient for retaining the sugars' redolence. She then realized it was in her work room...her eyebrows creased with self-blame. Why for heaven's sake would she think the spice of cinnamon would jolt her awake during all-night matinence? She knew for next time to try hot sauce.

Trotting upstairs and through the hall, she entered the room, scanning the desk first, sweeping away half-usable parts and half-finished projects. _'Where?' _she thought impatiently. _'Where!'_

_There_ was the cinnamon, in her tool box, underneath the desk, sitting in a slot meant for one of the larger screws used for Ed's former model of his leg. How much easier the Northern automail was to maintain...

Returning quickly, Winry found a brushstroke not on the canvas before. There was cleanliness _and _messiness present. Finished utensils and containers lay scattered in the sink. The sweet paper slices lay in a domino position circling the bottom of the pie crust. A top was cut out and set atop the pie in basket-weaved strips, just how she'd do. The purest evidence of presence was maple syrup, which she used for filling, that gleamed edges of the crust but also was spilled along the countertop.

Best and worst of all, the aroma of cinnamon was heady in the kitchen.

Just how long was she upstairs?

A turn to her right and there were two grocery bags sitting on a lone chair. What was-!

Oh, right. She went to the store just yesterday. But didn't she put them away?

She did so after placing the pie in the oven. Out the back door, she saw Alphonse's shiny metal head chopping firewood. When that boy returned, Winry would be sure to catch him, the sweet sticky helper. It _had _to be him - Ed had gone out much earlier than the younger Elric.

Edward entered the front door about 90 minutes later, just when the masterpiece was removed from its kiln.

"You used red apples, right?" he asked the blonde girl, who set the hot pie on the cooling rack.

_"You made apple pie?"_ would often be his reaction to this.

"Green and yellow," she answered, turning her back to him and motioning for his help untying a clenched knot on her apron.

He did so, chuckling. "Miss Rockbell can make the most amazing pies and automail prosthetics but can't unite knots?"

She playfully flung the white shroud at him. "Shut up." Her eyes followed him putting it away for her.

"Couldn't ask for help? Making the pie?" Ed asked, facing her.

"_Apparently_ your brother snuck in and 'helped' by finishing the formation while I hunted for cinnamon upstairs. There was a big mess of syrup on the counter." She noticed his heavy brown coat still on. "You can remove that coat."

Ed shook his head. "My shirt's...stained."

"With what?"

"Something sticky." Before Winry can speculate, Edward walked around the counter, encircling his arms around her shoulders from behind. His breath, his fingers, they both smelled like a certain sugary spice. "As for those groceries, especially _the cinnamon_...I'll take my repayment in a large slice of apple pie."

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><p>This request was made for <em>her voice of adieux, <em>Yvette, my dear friend. This was a truly delicious challenge, and you're right: I did have fun making it. The "chartreuse" in this case is the apples, which are yellow and green. I thought that would incorporate well with baking, tee hee.

It's just a little over 1000 words but I believe I did good in keeping the fluff "indirect" but "light" in the end. I made sure to get it done today before 6:00 (Eastern Time) to give readers time to see it before the day ends (for me, anyway.)


	9. Incarnadine Canticle

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>12.26.11<em>

9. Incarnadine Canticle

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><p>It's hard to say why I fell in love with those hands of hers.<p>

Such delicate skin beneath dexterity and minor gruff, not at all tenuous, winding around every difficulty one loophole at a time. She sits in the kitchen on a swinging desk chair, scooted in front of the counter. I hear her hum this silly little song, one that revertebrates from her throat like silver chimes. It breaks me from the little study session Al and I are having in the living room, and if he notices my ears pricking with intimate intrigue, he doesn't comment.

On the countertop is something of an honor student's art assignment. A large pine basket of an oiled chocolate; rolls of bubblegum ribbons of silk and sheer ones of a darker, euphoric shade; a yellow, toy-like hot-glue gun; swaddled in crystal plastic a bouquet of white camelias; likewise one of Queen Elizabeth roses - which, I might add, matched her curious blush; and a simple pair of grey scissors.

Winry often made these little crafts out of sheer boredom or desire- something to fill up the hours of the day. This had to be the latter, simply because once she's at it, there's nothing stopping those small pink hands from working magic.

I watch her lips pivot upward when she picks up the camelias. My ears pop when she removes the crinkling paper from this bouquet, then the next, the roses. She almost silently snips the stems off of each flower and places them in a row: rose, camelia, rose. _And still hums that sweet tune. _One pink and one white flower is stripped bare; its petals purl onto the wide bottom of the basket and are then glued down with the toy gun. In oppostie corners are two camelias and two roses, distinguished in their sheered, feminine bowties tied perfectly by Winry's pinched, pie-making fingerings. Some are aligned along the basket's walls in rows of four: length walls with white and width walls with pink. The rest make a fluffy gallery into the floor in a white-and-pink circle, dotted in the center with the baby-pink bowtie now, and also at the vertex of the basket handle.

She wafts the naturality of the garden in her kitchen, her hands slowly ascending into the air as if to take her most-appreciated bow.

"It's lovely, Winry," I whisper to her, noticing her cheeks bloom into that sugary-pink shade, matching the magnificent, grinning lips that I kiss. As I continue I touch her hands - in mine both of sweet, sweet flesh - and stroke the backs of them with my thumbs in a senseless, sensual rhythm.

And to think these hands could be in mine one day - hands that glide into mine like softened milk.

Those same hands that patch up the "oopsie-daisies" when I come home with my arm poised by a nerve ending. And punch the braid out of my hair. But when she's cooled, her hands firmly, tenderly dip into her toolbox, hook into my arm, and fasten nerves, equalize the weight with wound screws, and ensure a spit-shine sleek with her infamous red cloth and deep-gold oil. Hands that had a boyish aspect, moisturized with oil more often than lotion.

Those same hands that pounded at the palms and stung at the fingertips with feverish animosity as they lifted that pistol. And imagined just how nicely that bullet would puncture the condemned heart of her parents' murderer. But when I shielded her, glaring venomously at the scarfaced bastard who left us thereafter, I held those hands in the one that could not feel them scared stiff as I probed each finger away from the gun. Hands that I knew should never kill, for they were sculpted to bring forth healthy newborns and manufacture limbs for people like me to stand up and walk.

Winry's hands...

They're a gentle, clueless piece of work.

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><p>Special request for <em>Pink Bead Girl<em>, a true lover of soft, sweet pink. My dear friend, who inspired me to never stop improving my poetic style of writing, who thanks me for the pleasure of reading my fanfics. To you and others, I hope you enjoyed this and it had fulfilled your request. :)

"Incarnadine" is a soft, almost fleshy shade of pink (with a multiple meaning of a shade of red, but let's _think pink here_, lol) . If the title thought something the drabble thought otherwise, I'm sure. :)

Next request is "Claret" from _her voice of adieux_, my friend Yvette.

Anyone wanna drop a request? Colors I **haven't** used: **yellow, black, orange, blue** any light or dark variations, etc.


	10. Claret Accruement

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>3.25.12<em>

10. Claret Accruement

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><p>Amongst the droves of doves and ravens, he defied the attire, embellished in scarlet ensemble. He was seated and downing a dose of claret, quirking his lips at the acuteness that lingered on his tongue. His selfdom was wide, coursing like a sweet river within him, broadening his shoulders and appraising his masculinity.<p>

But his oneness was requited.

It was her altruistic gentleness and grace that managed to break his childish soul. He abandoned his goblet of scarlet honey to turn sideways in his chair, and he beheld her agility. Tufts of claret silk spread akin to an ocean's lap, curling before settling in low bounces against the girl's heels. She'd been lifted into the skilled arms of disparate men, a cardinal making herself scarce as she fisted the sky. His hand stiffened against the velvet chair's vertex, deep gold eyes residing with his feminine claret wine.

The young woman seated herself, greatful for intermission, closing her maroon-lidded eyes. She quaffed a flask of stainless drink, her indebtedness increasing. Her liberator was a young blonde man, whose soft cream lips were bloodied and soused as he grinned upon her. Her eyes widened; a skittish half-grin replaced her thanks. When she folded her balmy hands into her satin lap, it was then he noticed - but perferred to ignore - the espousal round her slim right finger. He glanced harder at her delicate ad poised profile and was solitary until her eyes drifted into his. She almost shrank back at his intimidating expression, and she offered him an unavowed wine. He sympathized her faltering fingers, her disquiet causing her to choke the neck of the glass, and he took her _claimed_ hand and abandoned the exhilarating drink.

Cadenced clicks of heels sounded along the ecru tile floor. There, he twirled her once, twice, before winding her up, intimately close. Scarlet sleeves encircled her middle, simpering lips lingered against pale-gold strings sewn into leafless branches. A gasp left the girl, being retracted from his body much too slowly, the air around her bitterly cool as she stretched her arm and struck still, her legs forming a jaunty kick. Combined with her alluring stance, her flushed, hot cheeks and wildly parted lips taunted his desires. He reeled her in faster, captured her starstruck gaze before stealing her lips, colliding them with his own.

With thousands of witnesses looking fixedly, she blushed madly, her body convusling in his hot palms now sinking into her waist. She was appalled, especially once he uncoupled his lips from hers. Hands half-raised for a nexus of slaps, he ceased them.

He gingerly slid the ring from her right finger and slowly - _all the while smiling_ - slipped it onto her left.

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><p>"You may be engaged to this man, but you're marrying me," is Ed's unspoken ending. :)<p>

another request from _her voice of adieux_! A lot shorter than _Chartreuse_, (about 460 words) but that was the idea. :) The object for the theme is both Winry's dress and claret, a type of wine.

**Thought process: **

_Dear Lord. _I spent months thinking of how I would start this. I had a lot in mind of what I was going to put, made at least FOUR draft attempts before deleting the whole thing and restarting. :/ All the time I was thinking to make it just as long as _Violaceau_, until I thought to made it a poem. That failed because I was straying completely away from the theme and guidelines both. My guidelines were _ambiguity and mystery, no thought or diolouge, stuble sensuality, teasing and cliffhanger suspense_. The hardest thing had to be no thought, so I had to make more "action" sentences. But I kept looking back at #5 for the idea.

I really, really like the way this draft turned out compared to the previous. On the 18th, I published a draft, but after 24 hours, it received no hits. I decided then that it was trash, and after rereading, it was. So since then (an entire week!) I tried hard to create more imagery that that draft lacked, saving only two sentences. I hope this fulfilled Yvette's request and readers' enjoyment. :D


	11. Towers of Tangerine

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>5.22.12<em>

11. Towers of Tangerine

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><p>That morning I woke with the sun warming my face and my brother's bed empty.<p>

When I opened my bedroom door, I'd almost tripped headfirst into something white and round. My first thought was Ed preparing to whack me with one of the armchair's throwpillows, but as I flinched back and straightened, I indeed witnessed Ed standing before me. A bashfulness was about his round face - sideswept bangs shading his golden eyes; two thoughtful, candy-like circles redenning his usually pale apples. His lips puckered and closed at the corners a bit, but with a nervous, unforced, and kind voice, he murmured, "H-Happy birthday... Alphonse!" If I hadn't been as close as I was to him and this cake presented to me in his small, shaking hands, I would've just heard my name being shouted, not the revelation that it _was _two weeks after the start of fall, my birthday.

The cake was two thickly frosted layers of chocolate. It melted off the sides like candle wax - he must've frosted it right out of the oven so he could deliver it warm. Like a rainbow exploded into fallen stars, tiny disc-shaped sprinkles were peppered everywhere. On the top, in a light blue gel frosting, scrawly, bunched-up print spelled out Ed's spoken sentence. If I was any older I probably would've laughed at the cane-shaped 'n' in my name or even the backward 'e,' but I grinned so widely and blushed in spite of myself. (It was without question Winry and Granny made the cake while Ed tapped his foot and grumbled - giddily - for the whole hour of baking.)

"Thanks Ed," I said.

He placed the cake's platter into my hands and ran off, shouting a small, "Yep!" in reply.

It only took maybe five minutes, right after making my bed and brushing my teeth, to look around and ask Granny, "Do you know where Brother ran off to?"

Intuition, I guess.

But Granny answered, noticing my concern, "Hm, I think he went outside to rake the leaves. He should be out back."

_'This early?'_ I thought, referring to the times of the wakening sun and the leaves' decay both. I palmed the back screen door open, a crisp, earthy air greeting me, as well as sundry, subdued bonfires of bright red and orange leaves. The whole backyard, complete with its wheat-yellow colored grass, was alit with fall's warm light.

I spotted the rake, its wide green comb sticking out in the purple-speckled, more dead leaves. I used both hands to lift it, its weight heavy at the head for my small body to carry. I turned about ninety degrees, letting the rake bounce and settle into the little hill beside it, flattening the cumulus and sending orange papers east and west, before they swayed, dazed, down to the ground.

Closer to the tree with our newly-equipped tire swing, a towering heap shivered. My heart leapt, and I braced myself with my weapon of choice being a menacing claw in my pudgy hands. A period of silence was among myself and this determined pile...until someone sprung forth from it.

I hollered. He was charging in midair like a squirrel.

Then I laughed, loudly. I practically embraced him as we fell down in a heap.

Ed was tackling me into the stubby grass and crunchy leaves. Pieces of an unfinished puzzle disjointed when our feet kicked the ground as we wrestled and rolled, leaves sticking to our grey fall-time jackets like bittersweet lint.

We sit sprawled out, panting from our playful battle and flashing each other wide smiles.

That was the day I turned eight years old.

And ten years later, some things never change.

The designation is written on the cake in a more adult manner, not in rushed giddiness, but with skilled, flowing cursive, but the joy all the same. That phantom-like aura of altruism that came with giving back...It was better than anything I could ask for.

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><p>Wohoo! Back to the Brothers! I know it took a while...I have two other chapters finished, but this one had to be done - it's happier and sweet.<p>

I'm updating two at a time as you can see...two more sometime soon? :D


	12. Silver Linings Streaked Grey

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>5.22.12<em>

12. Silver Linings Streaked Grey

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><p>"Every cloud has a silver lining, huh?"<p>

I overheard this phrase in some negligent years with the wayward optimism of a child: I might litterally (and stupidly) shoot my neck towards the blue, blue sky, my eyes squinting at a particularly large cloud that has the sun half-soaked into it. I'd stare at their unfurbished edges and oblonged shape and watch as a flock of them race into the everlasting azure above. But no silver linings caught my eye; and if they did, they were probably from the sun rimming them a similar color too bright to interpret. Either that, or I'd scratch the back of my ear and think nothing of it.

"It means 'every misfortune has its positive aspect," Al recited a bit contemptuously (I didn't mind, though, being a bit high and mighty myself at times).

We were walking as we said this, through a park a little past Central's cemetary, where we'd dropped off a few carnations beside Mr. Hughes' grave. Four for how many years since his death. Almost ironically, _he_ was the one who introduced the phrase to me and Al.

It was when I was in the hospital after the Fifth Laboratory incident. My arm had gotten jacked up in the fighting (but I found out recently it was from _one damn screw_) and I'd been complaining about that and probably my hunger, and Hughes told me, "Try to think positive. You're both okay, aren't you? In situations like this, every cloud has a silver lining. That means every misfortune has its positive aspect." I'd looked over at Al, who was nonchalant as he sat cross-legged against the wall. "One step closer to finding the Philospher's Stone, eh?" It was then that Al looked over and gave a curt nod as if he understood, right before turning away again.

I tried to utilize the phrase after countless hardships: when I practically died in the North, when I heard my father died, and, _heh_, right before Winry clocks me with her wrench when I'm hobbling up the porch.

"Well, currently it's life as we know it," I said, kicking a stray pebble by my foot. It skipped into the grey lake, leaving ripples over its fogged-glass surface.

Yeah, life was peaceful and undaunted. Al was back in his body and almost an inch taller than me, save for the antenna of hair I still persisted on keeping. So what hardships were there left in life that would hang it by a thread?

Unable to answer my own question, Al seemed to do so. "We're living life on a different path now. The sacrifices we make now might be as simple as choosing apples over cake," he said. He paused a moment to breathe in the air that picked up in subtlety, foreshadowing rain. "It may be small, and we may not think about it when it happens, but there is still an equivalent exchange..."

A raindrop slammed against my nose and I wrinkled it in frustration. Sometimes I really hated the rain.

Al and I sat near the stippled lake listening to its floppy shush. Our hair was a mess and falling into our eyes, and we grinned after clowning each other about it.

We look up at the swirling, fat clouds and squint at raindrops hitting our partially closed eyelids. No streaks of silver line these clouds, I see.

If the lining happens to be grey, it just means the positive aspect directs you to a different path of life.

One that leads to a happier ending.

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><p>I actually had to look up the meaning myself...I always thought something close, but never actually knew what the saying meant. I was imitating Ed for years, heh. :)<p> 


	13. Eye of an Orchid Storm

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>8.19.12<em>

13. Eye of an Orchid Storm

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><p>A body that can live on by the smeared thread of a blood seal. It doesn't ache. It doesn't get fatigued, sick, or hungry.<p>

It doesn't die.

Such a scatching illusion.

Suddenly the adversities slam back into my mortal, dying body. A body that is brittle bone, shrivelled stomach, and irreversably ill.

For four years it was perserved between two foreboding gates.

Next to that is armour that was strength, but knightless.

Truth comes by and gazes at my bones and broken skin (_bemeaningly_) behind a soliatary eye that is somehow "God's archangel." That eye bestows all false knowledge and shattered dreams, emitting a haunted storm with orchid lightning.

He compliments my eyes as he pampers my recessed face - _wishes to spit upon it._

_"_Forsaken_,"_ my ears hear over and over again. "Foolish, weak, and_ misled."_

_You're wrong,_ my cracked lips want to say, but my voice comes out weak like a dead flame.

Black hands like paper and warm blood are roaming my face again, some trying to slouch my shoulders to succumb to hopelessness.

Right now, I really just want my big brother.

The eye squints, and would quirk an eyebrow, if it could. _Why aren't I dismayed?_

Heavy-weighted eyelids close, my armour's mind opens doors of light and it smells like home. I hear the voices of fighting and cheering and Ed's heartbeat - overflown rivers and a drum.

Victory.

Somehow, it's like sunlight, warm and inviting.

Brother, come back soon.

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><p><strong>an:<strong> Al while inside the gate after returning to his flesh body.


	14. Midnight's Insomnia

_Iridescence_

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><p><em>8.19.12<em>

14. Midnight's Insomnia

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><p>"Light's out, boys."<p>

We heard this night after night

until I turned twelve, choosing

to grow up prematurely. Fusing

my military life with my past and present struggles

that summed up to a clouded future.

I heard it tonight singularly,

when Granny chided me at nearly 3 A.M.

I lay like a stone, a deep, deep scowl

pressed onto my lips.

. . .

Those bones weren't _hers._

They'd been scraped out

and jagged, crusted ones

usurped their place.

_How_

_the_

_hell_

_could_

_I_

_sleep?_

. . .

Rain burries every other sound in the house.

_(Burried like bruised bones.)_

Pinako's feathery snores diminish

as the pendulum in the clock smolders.

The creaky floorboards add a sort of chime to the patter

and the old door that groans is instead fitted by light laughter.

. . .

Trisha Elric.

A beautiful woman with a smile that made sunshine brlliant.

Her chesnut hair singed black, and her bones transformed.

My lips grow thin. I think of Al

maybe once, before I absorb

the sight I bestowed this stormy morning.

_(That hole drills as deep as the one in my slow-beating heart.)_

. . .

It's lights out.

I prepare for bed.

. . .

I lay my head upon the stone pillow

that's bone-cold - but somehow warm

with her love. Her faint arms like silk

engulf me, bringing light in my heart

and a tiny grin to my face. Wondering will

I ever leave this place, I almost want to strip down

stark naked and sift the soft muddy sheets

between my fingers and toes.

_(because there're words I want to say worth over a thousand verses.)_

. . .

Now, as I lay down to sleep

I hope to someone above (or

not - _N__ot me_, not _me_) hear my plea...

If I should die before I wake,

let me go - I know my brother's safe...

. . .

I'm taking flight in the windless sky

the ground dark and soft like velvet,

but my shoulders hurt and I know

I've fallen out of bed. Fallen up.

I was yanked free and was nestling

in the dewy, dark grass,

my brother screaming,

shaking me, breaking me:

"Wake up, Ed, BREATHE!"

Did I really want to leave?

_(...or had God pittied me?)_

. . .

My brother's faceless tears

pierced my heart.

Fear.

It painted his amoured face yellow.

I _still_ wanted his real face.

He'd extracted me from our mother's grave

and gingerly scrubbed the dirt from my face.

. . .

He seems so much bigger than me.

. . .

My eyes focus in on Granny Pinako

and my bastard father, turning up

out of nowhere, and they stare at me

first, before Granny gives me an earful.

My gaze, for half a second, shifts to

my old man, whose emotions lie in his eyes,

but are shielded by his specks.

(_his hands are caked with dirt...and blood_)

Granny pulls me up, and the bastard has his hand on my shoulder

and says we should talk over some morning tea.

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><p><strong>an<strong>: Ed when he and Pinako dug up the bones from Trisha's grave. Kinda haunting. This one I had finished for a while, but wanted to make it no. 14 specifically.


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